A pro-government analyst characterises the steps taken to condemn the new Polish government as carbon copies of a series of earlier hearings and infringement procedures launched in Hungary’s case after the right-wing electoral victory in 2010.

In Magyar Idők, Zoltán Kottász suggests that the debate in the Euroepean Parliament, as well as the rule of law probe launched by the European Commission, are expressions of a drive to set up a European super state. Each time a government is formed which values national sovereignty first and foremost, he continues, Brussels and the liberal media clamp down and accuse it of dictatorial inclinations. Poland is even more unfortunate than Hungary, he suggests, as the attacks came only two months after the new government was sworn in. Its Hungarian counterpart “had been given enough time to look around their new offices and find out how to operate the cappuccino function on their coffee machines” before facing similar charges. On the other hand, Kottász sees Poland as more fortunate, because the serious opposition parties (the former governing PO or Civic Platform) reject interference in their domestic affairs — a hint at most left-wing Hungarian MEPs who supported resolutions condemning the Hungarian government within the European Parliament.